


Worlds Together

by GatewayGirl



Series: The Analog Series [1]
Category: Harry Potter - Rowling
Genre: Alternate Timeline, Angst, First Time, Multi, Post-War, Spanking, Universe Travel, Unwarned content
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-03-07
Updated: 2010-03-07
Packaged: 2017-10-07 19:19:30
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,343
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/68346
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/GatewayGirl/pseuds/GatewayGirl
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Harry has been disconnected since the end of the war, several years ago. When he rescues a familiar-looking stranger, his empty peace is broken.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Worlds Together

**Author's Note:**

> Warning: This lacks a key warning, but I have been told it is better without it. See my listing at http://gatewaygirl.insanejournal.com/82059.html if you really need to know. I will say that it has no noncon, torture, killing, or even pissing. ;-)
> 
> Many thanks to my beta, sociofemme, whose advice made this a much better story, and to lore, for sanity-checking the first draft.
> 
> Canon-compliancy: through HBP x AU

Harry started with beer. He usually did. It provided some nourishment before he got down to business and switched to firewhisky.

He occasionally wondered if he'd drink less if he moved out of the Leaky Cauldron. There were problems with that, however. Moving would require deciding to _want _something, and hadn't felt that pull since -- well, since the war ended. Or perhaps since he'd given up on salvaging anything with the remaining Weasleys, or drawing what was left of Hermione out of her shell. Instead, he'd found his own shell, and it wasn't a bad one. He was comfortable, perhaps rather pathetically, at his table in the corner of the pub. He got things done, now and then, and flew a bit when coaxed. People spoke to him with a wary mixture of respect and pity. He might be a hopeless tosspot, but he _had _killed Voldemort, and last year's trouble in Diagon Alley had shown that his combat magic, incredibly, had not declined past spectacular in the years since.

A flash of red light behind the bar, in the barkeep's mirror to Diagon Alley, caught his eye. Someone outside had thrown a hex. Dark shadows converged on the now invisible point with unfriendly speed.

Harry left his beer and headed for the back door, drawing his wand as he moved. Other patrons scrambled out of his way. It felt good.

 

Harry had no idea who was on what side in the fight, but it was five on one, so he Stupefied two of the five, hung one upside down, and then roared, "What's going on here?"

The two untouched combatants froze over their victim. One of them stopped in mid-kick and had to stumble to regain his balance. He looked nervously across the curled-up form at Harry.

"Sir! He was pretending to be _you_. But no scar."

Harry suspected he was the only person in the world that this bloody-fisted young tough would call 'sir' as if he meant it.

"Not pretending very well, then, was he? Stand up, all three of you."

Wand still out, but held more casually -- deceptively so -- he approached them. To his relief, the man the attackers had been pounding on was able to stand. To Harry's practiced eye, he seemed unlikely to be suffering from internal injuries.

"Did you tell them you were me?"

"Name's Potter," the stranger said awkwardly, through a split and swelling lip. "Might be you." He shrugged. "Been hopping realities. This one looks about right."

It was an outrageous story -- almost too outrageous to be anything but the truth. Harry looked the man over. He was about Harry's age. Even in this light, they weren't identical, but from what Harry knew about alternate worlds -- Hermione had studied them for a few months, hoping to find a way to observe them, and maybe discover free House Elves and how they behaved -- analogs weren't always identical. The man had messy dark hair, Harry's build, and as far as Harry could tell, his face, although the stranger wore a Muggle style of glasses -- the sort with gold rims on top only -- that changed the general look.

He opened his mouth, not quite certain how to challenge. An analog might have had entirely different life. He might not have been attacked by Voldemort as an infant. He might have had a real home. He might not have lost everyone in a war. He might have a family of his own, now.

Fortunately, Harry's instincts were smarter than his brain, sometimes.

"I solemnly swear...."

"I am up to no good," the man responded. He looked as startled as Harry felt.

"Right. Well, that's that." Harry put a hand under the man's arm, and waved the other at the gawking toughs, carelessly lowering the suspended one to the ground. "Thank you all, gentlemen, but I'll take it from here."

He helped his analog into the pub, settled him at his own table, and went to get another two pints.

 

The stranger was a bit shaken, but agreed that he didn't seem to have any serious injuries. Harry healed his lip for him; he couldn't have managed the incantation until it was done.

"The problem was the war -- do you have, er, Voldemort here?"

"We did. I destroyed him, about four years ago."

His analog's eyes widened. "Did you? You must be tougher than me."

Harry shrugged. He supposed that was likely, though it hadn't been his intent. "I had more people than I care to think about preparing me to kill."

"I've tried not to," the stranger muttered.

"Not my thing either. What is it? 'We are warriors, so that our sons may be scientists, and their sons may be artists'? Something like that."

The stranger frowned. "I've heard the quote, I think. It has two parts in each. 'Artists and philosophers.'"

Harry shrugged again and drank his beer down two inches. "Something like that. A friend was trying to comfort me."

"I know the sort of friend."

They looked at each other, the contact intimate and rich. Despite the obvious differences, Harry felt that here was, by lucky chance, someone who understood him.

"How much do the worlds vary?" Harry wasn't sure his eyes would show in this light, but the man's were lit by the fire, and clearly not green.

"It can be almost imperceptible to quite startling. I've been on worlds where no one had heard of Voldemort, and ones where he ruled not only Britain, but all of Europe."

"And us?"

The man laughed slightly. "I've only once before met an analog in the flesh. But I've looked some up in the papers, and yes -- time of conception can matter, you know. Claudia Potter was quite the socialite, two worlds back."

Harry laughed. "Are you lost? Is there a point to this?"

"Ah -- well, that brings us back to He-Who-Must-Not, and all."

"Voldemort."

"Right." The stranger smiled agreeably at Harry's steely tone. "Voldemort. So he was rather keen to kill me...."

"Me and everyone I trusted."

"Pretty much. But I was the reason that they were in danger."

Harry nodded, and the stranger continued. "So we had this idea. What if we could devise a charm that caused imminent mortal danger to send us off into another world? Just temporarily."

"But you didn't get the 'temporarily' part worked out?"

"Oh, we did. In spades! Just not the 'coming back' part. It's temporary, all right, but I'm always sent somewhere else, not _back._ And we're never together long enough to figure it out."

Harry tried to push down a surge of envy at the thought of working with Ron and Hermione again. "You and your friends?"

"What? Oh no. That's -- We're --" The stranger flapped his hands helplessly. "No, I'm working with my wife, on this one. I think we need to have the entire family --"

"Family?" Harry leaned back. "Well, you're definitely not me." He drank more of the beer and the stranger frowned.

"But I'm _another _you, see?"

"I suppose." Harry looked away. "How long between jumps?"

"A day or two, usually. I've been traveling for weeks -- maybe months. We run across each other, now and then, but that's usually a matter of hours." He leaned forward as Harry drained the glass, and caught at his arm before he could signal Tom for more. "I have a theory," he said intently.

"Yeah?"

"It needs two."

"So you want me to help."

"I think so ... but perhaps we should discuss this more privately."

Harry jerked his head at the stairs. "I have a room."

"How convenient."

Harry couldn't place that smile, but it did odd things to his stomach. Dizzily, he led his analog upstairs, stopping only to snag a glass from behind the bar. Tom's only response was a curt nod.

  


"So...." Harry poured two drinks, which felt odd, and handed one to his analog, which felt odder. "You had an idea?"

The man took a sip of the firewhisky, but then put it down and shifted closer on the bed. He placed a hand down behind Harry and leaned into it, for all the world like he was on the pull.

"Only one sure way to fetch my wife."

"Mmn?" Harry prompted, around the rim of his glass.

"Start in with a good-looking bloke."

Harry's head snapped up at that. Not _like _he was on the pull -- he actually _was. _"You -- you're -- you want to --?"

"It should work."

The man's breath was hot on his ear with the words, and Harry's brain was running in frantic circles, like a panicked rabbit.

"She'll show up to stop you?"

"Hell, she shows up to _watch. _She has more control over it than she knows." The stranger laughed. "She's smarter than me, and I'm _not _humble."

Harry shifted, and in the press of his flies against his apparently-hard cock finally recognized his response as _lust. _"I bet."

"In fact, just this morning I was told to go fuck myself." A tongue fluttered over Harry's ear, before teeth closed in its place.

"Yeah? Better get on with it, hadn't you?" Harry winced at his instinct's idea of wit. "I mean -- no. No, don't."

The man straightened. Harry was horrified to find that he was disappointed.

"What is _wrong _with you? I can't believe I'm a prude in _any _world, and this certainly doesn't look like you have other commitments." With a wave, he indicated the messy, impersonal room.

"I ... I've never --"

"Never fucked?"

"Well, a man. You've done more to me than any --"

"That's insane! I started in sixth year!" His analog stroked a hand down Harry's cheek in teasing pity, and then leaned forward and kissed him.

It was a marvelous kiss. Harry had forgotten how wonderful kissing could feel. He let the man pull him forward, so their thighs were pressed together, and he gave himself up to it. What would anyone care, anyway? It wasn't like anyone particularly respected him, except as a fighter.

"Oh." The man's soft sigh as he eased back was worshipful; his eyes gleamed. "Yeah. I always suspected I was perfect."

Harry laughed. "You ass!"

"Takes one to know one."

"Apparently." Harry let himself relax into warm arms, and they tumbled down to the bed. "Show me what I've been missing."

 

Harry had been expecting something quick and direct, but his analog seemed to have put far more effort into learning pleasure than Harry ever had. His shirt was unbuttoned slowly, with attention to uncovered skin along the way, and Harry, wanting more, ran his hands down the man's back and over his arse, shivering with pleased surprise when his plain black trousers had the soft brush of velveteen under his hands. Exploratory kisses down his chest turned to gentle pulls on his nipples and he lay back, nearly vibrating with pleasure.

"Breathe," the man said softly. "But let it quicken." His hands left Harry's hips to start in on his own buttons, and Harry finally thought to reciprocate.

"Shall I?"

"Do."

When they were both naked, Harry tried tentative touches down the man's sides and at his chest. He wasn't sure about cock, but his analog had no such doubts, and a minute after the first slow strokes slid up his, Harry couldn't remember his own reservations. The man's erection fitted tantalizing in his grip, and, as he began to move his hand, wondering at how different it felt from this side, the kisses started again, making him dizzy.

The first touch of his analog's mouth to his cock was perfect. Harry let out a quiet pleading cry and raised his hips, making his analog chuckled over his sensitized skin. A finger reached behind his balls and trailed lightly back along his crack, leaving a trail of wetness. Harry wouldn't have believed that would feel good, but it was wonderful.

"Damn," he breathed. He hadn't been this wildly aroused in -- well, as long as he could remember, although he knew some of the better memories were damaged.

"Sorry you waited so long, I bet." Fingers tightened at the base of his erection. "Don't come yet."

Harry laughed roughly. "Don't know whether I'll come at all." The finger sliding deeper along his crack stopped.

"You _are _enjoying this, aren't you? I mean, I didn't mean to presume --"

"Enjoying, yeah. I just drink too damn much."

His analog snorted, but resumed his touch, moving more precisely against his hole. "How did I ever become so pathetic?"

"No reason not to be. Everyone else is dead or not speaking to me, or too damn polite." Harry clenched his jaw. "There. Good to know I can be honest with myself."

"Hey." The voice was soft, but the smooth finger pressing at him finally went in. Harry whined with lust. _"Here. Now. _And you _will _come, even if I have to keep you in bed for days."

"Fuck."

"That would be my first choice. As much as you can stand. Love your arse."

"Love your voice."

Harry didn't think it was _his _voice at all, but he knew that he sounded different in a pensieved memory from someone else. Hermione had said it was because you heard your own voice through your bones.

"You know what you need?"

"Constant distraction?" Harry asked hopefully.

His analog responded with a smirk that Harry was sure he could not duplicate. The intrusion left and came back wider, burning slightly, but too good to refuse. "You need a fiery redhead who thinks this is hot."

Harry stiffened, and the burning increased. His analog held still.

"All right, there?" His analog was looking up his torso, watching him intently.

"She died."

"What? Oh." Those strange eyes darkened with something warmer and deeper than pity. "Hell. Voldemort?"

"Yeah."

"Sorry I called you pathetic. I'd expect to be worse."

"It was a few years ago. Maybe I'm pulling out of it."

"Are you?"

"No." Harry felt on the edge of hysteria. He wanted to die, or to shove the man away and pretend this had never happened.

"Shh. I'm sorry. Here. Now. Feel." His analog slipped down and with no preamble, took Harry's cock deep in his mouth. The fingers began to move again.

"Like this idea," Harry stuttered.

"Mmm," affirmed the stranger, and kept at it. The memories of Ginny faded into sparks of perfection.

 

By the time it came to the man's cock, rather than just his fingers, pressing against his hole, Harry thought that was a brilliant idea. He wasn't as sure after the first push.

"Relax. If I get in a little deeper, it's narrower, you know."

Harry tried to relax. He didn't know how. He never had, really. "Shouldn't your girl be here, by now?"

"Soon." The man trailed a finger up Harry's cock. Harry bucked without thought, impaling himself further. It didn't feel as bad as before. He rocked his hips a few times and it started to feel _good. _

"She doesn't always show on the first try."

"You mean we may have to do this again?"

"Only if we're lucky." The man snapped his hips forward, and Harry cried out in startled pleasure. The man paused, obviously uncertain.

"Not if you don't want to. She has the baby, though, so timing -- I offered to take him last time, but since I'm lacking the natural food supply...."

"Baby?"

"Part of that 'family' thing that so shocked you."

In a moment of clarity, Harry looked up, studying the flushed face above him. The stranger was smirking. Once again, Harry was certain he couldn't look like that, himself.

"Um ... what's your name?"

The man frowned at him. "Didn't we start with that?"

"Only the second half."

"Oh! James Potter. But you --"

"I'm Harry." Harry tightened his legs around the man's ribcage, preventing James from pulling out. His face was rapidly darkening from a lust-driven pink to true red. "But not _your _Harry, obviously, because he's with Lily. Is it still Lily?"

In a strangled voice, James managed a 'yes.'

"And you're not _my_ James, because he and my mum died when I was a baby. Your scheme didn't leave fake bodies, did it?"

James shook his head. Harry grabbed his arse and pulled. "Keep fucking me. _Need _it. Haven't been touched in -- in years, I think."

"Oh, hell." Despite the exclamation, James shoved forward. "Need it, do you?"

"Yeah, just like that. Didn't know how much I needed that."

 

"James!" The woman was calling the name, in eager delight, as she appeared in the room. "I've figured it out! We --"

She fell silent. Harry tried to stop, but James was having none of it. He pinned Harry with desperate force and continued to hammer into him. The newcomer made her way to the side of the bed, where Harry could get a better view of her. It was definitely Lily, with a sleeping toddler strapped to her back. Her eyes widened at the sight of Harry's face.

"Oh, kinky, love!" Tapping the toddler with her wand --_ perhaps to keep him asleep?_ \-- she stepped forward and leaned over Harry to kiss James.

Just watching their lips meet was indescribably erotic. Without thought, Harry resumed rising into James's thrusts, and James sped up, his lips still pressed against the woman's. Harry whined as his balls tightened and then let loose. For a moment, there was nothing in the world but his cock and their kiss.

"Sorry!" Harry gasped. He'd got come all over Lily's jumper, as well as on himself. James let out a wail, slammed into him hard, and came screaming loud enough that they must be hearing it down at the bar. Lily chuckled and drew back.

"Nothing a cleaning charm won't fix. You looked beautiful, both of you."

With a groan of satisfaction, James rolled off of Harry and sat up, unabashedly naked, with his cock shining vulgarly with lube and come. Harry wondered that it didn't look dirty. Lily cast cleaning charms all around, laughing as Harry yanked the covers up over his lap.

"You're a welcome sight yourself, love," James said, the charm mixing oddly with his breathless voice. "You found a solution?"

"A method, at least. Partially it's a matter of power, but the real problem is intent. All three of us need to sincerely _want _to, and we all need to be together, and it is becoming exponentially harder to want to enough as more time goes by." She looked at him, her head cocked to one side and a wry smile on her lips. "But I'll have to wait until your afterglow wears off to try, I see. You're all for this excursion at the moment, aren't you?"

James swung a leg behind Harry and pulled him back snug against him. "What makes you say that?"

Embarrassed as he was, Harry still couldn't keep from smiling at the innocent tone James used.

"I _know _how much you like to play with yourself."

"Uh ..." James hid his face against Harry's neck. "Actually, it's worse than that. He's not my analog, though that _is _what I thought when we started at it. He's, um, Harry's."

"He -- Oh!" Lily blushed. "Dear." Her eyes flickered away from him, and then curiously back. "He looks very like you."

"However," Harry said firmly, "My parents were killed by Voldemort, over twenty years ago."

"Are you certain?"

"There were bodies. Killing curse. Besides, you have your Harry there, correct?" Harry pointed.

"True." Lily laughed slightly. "Well, that's a relief." She set the sleeping child at the foot of the bed and lay back between him and them, stretching her arms above her head, making her body arch slightly. The little boy lay quietly.

"Did you use a sleeping spell?" Harry asked.

"Of course not!" she said indignantly. "That can cause lifelong sleep disorders. The charm I used just keeps him from being woken by noise or motion at normal levels; he can still wake."

"I didn't know sleep spells were a problem, really."_ Though it felt like a bad idea._

"Oh." This appeased her. "I suppose you don't have much experience with infants." As she spoke, Harry could see her eyes flicking about the little room, taking in the careless heaps of clothing and the total lack of personal items.

"None, except as one." Harry agreed. He settled back against James, who pulsed into him a few times, and then wriggled to settle his cock -- not as softened as Harry would have expected -- more deeply in Harry's crack. "I have exactly one friend left, and we meet once a week, _if _both of us remember that it's Sunday, and then we spend the whole time trying not to say anything that matters. She's no more likely to breed than I am; it would require leaving the library."

James sighed and shifted out from behind Harry to stroke a hand down Lily's body. She rose up into it like an affectionate cat. "Lily? Could we bring him along? Not, I mean, as a permanent toy, but he rather needs to go, I think. To leave here."

Lily, startled, rolled half on to her side to look at Harry, and then fell back to frown thoughtfully up at James. "It won't create a paradox, since he's from another timeline, but he'd need to have a cover story, and another name, and --"

"Right." James glanced over at Harry. "It wouldn't do for people to know you're from the future, even another one. The Ministry would Obliviate you, or send you back. We _could _say you're me from another world, but I won't share the name."

"I can pick another name." As the words left his mouth, quickly and without thought, Harry realized that he _could _still want. _Sirius _filled his head, still paired with the original enticement of _home._ He reminded himself that it wouldn't be like that.

Lily frowned. "I haven't agreed. James, what about --"

"Pack," James urged Harry. "I'll work on her."

"You don't always get your way, you know."

"I do when there's no harm in it." James slid a hand up under her skirt, and she giggled. Harry couldn't take his eyes from them, and how effortlessly they talked and touched. Watching didn't seem dirty, although he thought it ought, but he could not bring himself to push aside the covers and be naked in front of her, now that he had enough attention free to be aware of it.

James was still talking to Lily, his voice low and satisfied. "I bet you're soaked from watching us. You like watching me with men, don't you? You should have shown up earlier, when I had his cock in my mouth."

"That's almost incest, you know," she said, vainly trying to keep her voice steady.

"Almost," James allowed. "But not really, is it?" His voice went coaxing as he gestured to the child. "_There's _our son, Lily. Not that hot young man behind me."

She looked up, then, and Harry was reminded why people stared at his eyes once they managed to look away from his scar. He was vaguely aware of her stilling James's touch with a hand on his wrist, and then she sat up, bringing her eyes closer. Her shirt was rumpled over her breasts. "Other-Harry ... Do you actually _want_ to come with us?"

"Yes. May I?"

She sighed. "I haven't decided. I'm not trying to be coy; it's just difficult. But do pack. We're never together for long."

Harry shrugged. "Not much I want to bring. Er ... I need to get dressed."

She tsked, smiling mischievously as she caught the reason for his reticence. "Now, love, if you're going to let my husband bed you, you can't be shy about your body with me."

James sat up as well, settling across the bed from his wife. "I did warn you that she likes to watch." He pulled Harry into a showy kiss, and Harry only belatedly felt the covers slipping off of him.

"Hey!"

Lily was laughing, but not, as he had expected, holding the covers. "One of the few spells he can do wandless," she said, almost proudly.

Blushing, Harry scrambled off the bed and pulled on the jeans closest to hand, belatedly noticing that they were a bit skanky. With the more private bits covered, he was able to gather his composure enough to summon his only suitcase from under the bed. While he was opening the top drawer of the wardrobe, Lily asked:

"Don't you know any packing spells?"

Harry thought of Tonks, who hadn't spoken to him since Remus Lupin's funeral. "No," he answered.

"Try _Necessarius._" Lily demonstrated the motion of his wand. "It will pack the essentials, and then you can add in what you wish."

Harry tried it. To his embarrassment, the spell caused two items to fly into the suitcase: the box he had been taking from the wardrobe, and the half-bottle of firewhisky. His Firebolt settled beside it. Lily sighed.

"That won't do," she said firmly, removing the bottle.

"No," James said seriously, winking at him. "It's not even sealed. It would turn into a horrible mess."

Lily frowned at him before focusing on Harry. "Perhaps I should have warned you -- that spell packs what you _consider _to be essential, not necessarily what _is. _What's in the box?"

"Um ... photographs, mostly? And, um, Dad's invisibility cloak." He looked at James. "The Marauders' Map. Some things Sirius gave me."

"Forgive him the whisky, love; the man has taste!" James proclaimed magnanimously.

"It'll do." Harry made to close the suitcase, but Lily stopped him.

"Harry -- you need to bring more. As James has reminded me, we are not, technically, your parents. If I'm to preserve any respect for him, or myself, we need to remember that and not behave that way."

Harry thought that sounded awfully maternal, but then he looked at James, who was watching them and absently fondling his swelling cock. "Yeah -- you know, I've never had much in the way of family life, but even _I_ know that his behavior is not at all paternal."

James whooped with laughter and Lily smiled. "What I mean, though, is that we won't support you. You can stay with us, short-term -- for a year, perhaps, if you're a decent addition to the household -- but I'm not going to buy you clothes or provide you with money. You'll need a job, in time."

"Oh." Harry's eyes widened. "Um, I've never done that. I mean, I did a lot of work, for the Dursleys, but never for money."

James seemed taken aback. "Why ever not?"

"Well, I _can't _really. I mean, any place I worked would be a target of the surviving Death Eaters. And I have plenty of money. I would have liked to have played Quidditch; if it wasn't for the politics, I'm good enough --"

"What position?"

"Seeker."

"Oh, excellent!" James leaned back. "Lily, we _need _to bring him home. We've been looking for a decent replacement for Wilson for eight months, now."

Lily rolled her eyes. "Wait. Harry, could you explain that bit about working not being safe? Lots of people have been targeted --"

"I killed Voldemort."

Her hand flew to her mouth as her eyes opened wide. James nudged her shoulder. "Part of my argument for you."

"The prophesy," she breathed.

Harry nodded at the sleeping child. "If I can do it, _he _won't have to. I've already killed."

"And he knows how Voldemort is protected," James added eagerly.

"Would it be the same?"

Harry knew what she meant. "It might be, especially if we can get back to shortly after you left. The useful things I know are mostly from things he set up in the seventies, or even fifties and sixties." Harry clenched his hands. "I could do it better now. I wouldn't need to test as many things. I wouldn't have people dying all over the place."

"Oh dear." Lily looked pained. "It's not that you drove your friends off, then."

"Well, some. But, you know, Ron and Ginny and George died, and none of the surviving Weasleys really want to talk to me. Fred is the only one that hates me, I think, but the others ... they just don't want to be reminded. I can't blame them. There's a lot of that." He closed his eyes against the painful understanding on her face.

"Pack, Harry. I'll take care of James."

 

Harry had uncovered his old school trunk and was scooping scattered clothes from the floor in on top of his old dress robes, when he heard the sharp smack of flesh on flesh. He turned in a panic, expecting that he had misunderstood, and the humorous-seeming discord had turned violent. He saw James sprawled across Lily's lap and taking an open-handed blow, and after one horrible, reeling moment of terror, noticed that both of them looked pleased with the arrangement.

"Too hot to focus?" Lily was murmuring. "I suppose I had better fix that."

James pleaded, but there was nothing of refusal to it. Another eight blows landed.

"Venus!"

"You swear like a pureblood, Jamie-boy."

"There's a reason for that."

The slaps started again. Now and then, they paused, and Harry would glance over to see Lily rubbing James's bum, or stroking his erection.

"Naughty boy. You're lucky I'm so good to you."

"Yes! I know I am, I know ... please, Lily!"

When Harry closed his trunk and looked nervously over, Lily smiled at him as if she was not efficiently pulling on her husband's cock. "All ready?"

"Um, with packing."

"Come here, then. I need a hand."

Terrified and eager at once, Harry crossed the little room. Lily purred like a cat in a buttery.

"Do you see what I'm doing here, to his nipple?"

"Um, yes?"

She was pinching the tiny nub of flesh and pulling it obscenely out above inhuman mewling sounds from James.

"Could you continue that for me? His cock, too -- I'm sure you know how to do that! I need my hands free."

Eagerly, Harry took over the motions, and was rewarded by hearing those wanton noises go deeper. Immediately, she returned to her spanking, and James squirmed. Harry knew how recently that cock had been up his arse, but she _had _cleaned it, and he couldn't bear to touch it with only his hand. He ducked down and took it in his mouth. James cried out, but he could only press forward twice before he was coming, flooding Harry's mouth with thick, bitter juices. Harry swallowed hard, three times, and fell back. For a moment, they all stayed in place, watching each other and panting.

"Hot," James said.

"Yes," Lily stood. "But for now --"

James sat up. "You need a fuck."

"I need to get home."

"You need a fuck more."

"All the more reason for me to want to be home."

"He could stuff you."

"I think you're the one he wants."

James grabbed Lily's wrist and pulled her down. She fell over his lap, facing him, and James looked past her, at Harry.

"Fuck her. Just shove it in; she doesn't need much, by now."

Harry hesitated, but then shook his head. "Do it yourself -- I need to write a letter."

 

That left him writing a note to Hermione, saying that he'd left to get his head together, and didn't expect to return, while James, using a dildo that he had transfigured from something, or possibly conjured, fucked his squirming wife. Harry continued on to confirm his official will, which left half his worldly possessions to Hermione, with the other half to be divided among the surviving Weasleys. Hedwig, happy to be called, perched on her cage on the trunk, and Harry bound the lot to him with the spell used for taking luggage through portkeys. Lily was screaming, now, and Harry turned to watch the satisfied smirk on James's face as she collapsed, boneless, on the bed. He found himself sitting on the other side of her, stroking her hair and studying the tender expression on James's face as he did the same to her back. When James looked up into his gaze, Harry laughed nervously.

"This is very weird."

"Mm." James sighed. "Lily ... _can _we get home? We're at least twenty years into the future, here. Will it be like that if we go back?"

Shaking her head, Lily struggled to hands and knees, and then turned to sit between them. "No. It's a bit far, but I was ten years ahead, my second jump, and five behind, a few after that. I think we should be able to get back -- time is just noise, compared to the world shift, and worlds are more likely to accept things where they belong. It's just desire, like I said. I've figured out how to cause it for Harry -- our Harry -- so we're the ones who need to get our heads in the right place, right?"

She pushed back her tousled hair and smiled at Harry. "You'll need to want to go, too, or we'll leave you behind, even if we hold on. That's why you're a problem!" She looked pleased at having figured that out, as if she had been struggling with her reluctance all through the vigorous sex. "Really. If you just want to _leave _here, you might end up someplace else. Do you have a good reason to want to come with us?"

Harry closed his eyes. He had a number of reasons, he was certain. Some were tangled, but one was perfectly clear. "In your world ... is Sirius still alive?" He had to open his eyes at that, because his memory was all too eager to supply the sight of Sirius falling through the Veil. "I'd like to see Sirius again." He twisted a hand through the bedcovers. "More than anything."

"He wouldn't be _your _Sirius," James reminded him gently. He had stood at some point, and pulled on a shirt. Now he settled on Harry's other side, placing a hand on his shoulder in a manner that was not at all lascivious.

"That might be just as well. Mine was rather broken."

Lily shot a look at James. "Did he not take care of you?"

"He couldn't really." At the bitter triumph in her eyes, Harry straightened. "No, _couldn't. _He was in Azkaban until I was thirteen, and then a fugitive for the rest of his life."

"Azkaban!"

A flash of anger, dark and old, shot through him. Harry knew these two weren't _his _Mum and Dad, but if they'd done the same thing.... "Did you have a Secret Keeper?" he demanded.

"Well, yes." Lily looked confused. "It was going to be Sirius, but then he said Peter --"

"Who obviously betrayed us." James interjected.

"Great." Harry wondered if Sirius would be any calmer when James and Lily had fled, rather than died. "Does anyone _know _Sirius isn't your Secret Keeper?"

There was a moment of silence, broken by James speaking a flat "Oh, hell."

"In _my _life, he went after Peter, and Peter killed a bunch of Muggles escaping and framed Sirius for it. And since all the people who _might _have defended Sirius knew that he must have betrayed you to Voldemort, and therefore had to have been the spy all along...."

James shot up from the bed and grabbed his trousers from the floor. "We need to get back. Now."

"Well, that's accomplished something," Lily said dryly. "Hold a moment, James. Harry-other, who raised you, if Sirius didn't? Alice and Frank?"

Harry felt almost guilty about telling her, since the answer was clearly not anything she had planned. "Aunt Petunia and Uncle Vernon."

_"WHAT?"_

"You died for me -- well, my mum did. It's what protected me from Voldemort. As long as I was in the care of one of her blood relatives, that protection was extended, so Dumbledore --"

"I wouldn't trust Vernon with the care of a _toad!"_

"I was pretty miserable, yeah."

James turned, his trousers dangling from one hand. He was half-hard again, despite everything, his swollen cock parting the sides of his shirt. "Do we have time to go yell at Dumbledore?"

"He died."

"Wouldn't he just."

Harry glared at him. "And Sirius is more important."

"All right." James sighed. "I can agree with that. Lily?"

Lily nodded and stood. "It's suddenly not optional, is it?"

James nodded, twisting his feet carelessly into his shoes, as Harry sent the letters to his bedside table and removed the locks from his door. "Now."

"Now," she agreed. "Let me wake Harry."

Harry stepped forward as she cancelled the spell she'd placed on the baby.

"Do you --"

"Shh."

"Mumma?"

"Hello, sweetie. I thought we'd go get Doggie, today. Do you want Doggie?"

"Doggie!" the child cried, surging up to totter on his feet on the uncertain surface of the bed. "Want Doggie, Mumma!"

"We'll go get Doggie." With the satisfied smile of the extremely clever, she held out a hand to Harry. He took it, and James seized his other one. "Think of Sirius," she whispered, as they took opposite hands of the child.

 

The circuit closed. There was everything, all at once.

 

The house was dark -- even darker than the moonlit night around them. The front door, just in front of them, was swinging on its hinges, and by the state of the adjoining wall, had been doing so for some time -- weeks, at least. As if their arrival had summoned him, a wizard appeared with a pop of displaced air.

He was young, well-dressed, and inarguably pretty. "Lily!" He flung himself at Lily, who was in front. At the sound of his voice, Harry realized the arrival was Remus Lupin. He stared.

"Oh my god, I was afraid you'd never make it back! Peter is dead, and Sirius -- I can't _believe _it was Sirius, I could have _sworn _ \-- He's in Azkaban, sent last week, and I still don't know _why _\--"

The flow of words stopped as he focused past James, on Harry. His eyes widened. Harry stepped forward and nodded smartly.

"We can fix that."


End file.
